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“I Don’t Care If It’s July”

March 25th, 2014

Bucs special teams chief Kevin O’Dea has no room for loafers

Lovie Smith is steadfast in his expectations: every single one of his defensive players will pursue the football all-out hard on every snap, and his special teams will be a relentless band of brothers.

The offense? Well, that’s a mystery. But we’ll soon find out.

Joe recommends this Buccaneers.com video feature on special teams coordinator Kevin O’Dea, a 20-year NFL veteran, who in addition to working with Lovie in Tampa during the glory years, also was in Chicago with him, among other stops. Prior to his NFL days, O’Dea actually coached alongside Greg Schiano at Penn State.

The link above is Part II of the feature. Joe found O’Dea’s takes on what makes a special team player and loafing to be noteworthy.

“I don’t care if it’s July,” O’Dea says, in illustrating how players who don’t play hard for their teammates are the wrong players to have. “Cancer” was his choice of word.

In Part I here, O’Dea details how his grading system for players is fully transparent, so the roster knows who is performing and who isn’t. For example, he wants Doug Martin to know who’s excelling at blocking on the punt return team. It’s part of Lovie’s philosophy of accountability and building chemistry.

Sounds great and all, but as we’ve heard and seen NFL players have big egos. Seems like a real fine line trying to find what motivates and what gets tuned out. Based on history I’d say each assistant coach will get a two year window to figure it out

You are giving individual scores to a group. Each individual has responsibilities that differ in terms of importance. You need to measure the efficacy of the entire unit.
Players who score lower will learn to resent those who receive top grades and also the coach who is grading them.
The group watches film together right? They should each be allowed to critique their own performance.
It’s High School and it reeks of Schiano.